Conventional handsets were conceived at a time when design criteria focused essentially upon placing the speaker and microphone of the telephone on a single handset. Little or no emphasis was placed on the location of the grip portion of the handset, or the manner in which a handset would need to be gripped in normal usage of the handset.
This has resulted in handsets requiring hand, wrist and arm positions that are not relaxed and therefore placing undue stress on joints and muscles. The normal use of conventional handsets requires the positioning of the user's hand in the area between his/her ear and mouth. This raises the arm to a significant extent and therefore activates most of the arm and shoulder muscles during normal use of the handset, leading to the onset of tiredness over a period of use which in turn leads to a falling away of the handset from its optimum functioning position.
The position of the arm and hand above described must be maintained during the length of the telephone conversation so that the speaker and microphone of the handset can be firmly held against the ear and near the mouth respectively. Whenever the position of the arm and hand is relaxed or the pressure reduced from a firm holding of a handset against the head of the user, the mouthpiece thereof tends to drop below the chin of the user leading to muted conversation. A constant conscious effort must therefore be maintained to keep the required alignment of the mouth and earpieces of the telephone.
A telephone handset has been published in Australian patent application No. 39445/85, which is claimed to be of ergonomic design, however, the handset disclosed therein follows conventional theory in still requiring the gripping of the handset between the ear and mouth of the user or in the vicinity adjacent the mouth of the user. Thus the abovementioned problems still exist.